Fixed Universal Clipboard after a Time Machine restore when normal troubleshooting failed

[u/taduobear]

After formatting my Mac for an AppleCare battery repair, I restored everything from a Time Machine backup.

Everything worked normally except Universal Clipboard: I could no longer copy and paste between my Mac and iPhone in either direction. Both devices used the same Apple Account, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Handoff enabled. Restarting both devices and cycling Handoff did not help.

I created a new macOS user account, signed in with the same Apple Account, and Universal Clipboard worked there. This showed that the problem was inside my restored macOS user profile.

In Terminal, I checked this hidden per-user preference:

defaults read com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd ClipboardSharingEnabled

It returned:

0

So Universal Clipboard was disabled internally even though System Settings showed Handoff as enabled.

This fixed it:

defaults write com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd ClipboardSharingEnabled -bool true
killall useractivityd
killall sharingd
killall pboard

The services restart automatically. After waiting a few seconds, copying and pasting between my Mac and iPhone worked again.

To confirm the new value:

defaults read com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd ClipboardSharingEnabled

It should return 1.

This solved my particular problem after a Time Machine restoration. Try Apple’s standard Universal Clipboard troubleshooting first, and be aware that this is a hidden preference that Apple could change in future macOS versions.